At an event to mark World No Tobacco Day, the organisations also cited a 2010 study from the World Health Organization that concluded increasing tobacco taxes by 50 percent in 22 low-income countries would generate US$1.4 billion.

“If those funds were devoted to health care, health spending by governments of these countries could increase by up to 50 percent,” added the manifesto.

According to World Health Organization estimates from 2003, 16 percent of adults in the Dominican Republic were current smokers.

Dominican Republic is one of six countries in the Americas region that are not parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The treaty has 178 Parties representing nearly 90 percent of the world’s population.

The FCTC includes a series of measures for reducing tobacco use, including: